Imagine two objects at rest at the top of an inclined plane which are capable of rolling and which are identical in every way (mass, radius, etc) with the exception of how their mass is distributed. One is focused towards the centre and the other is focused towards the outside thus giving them a different moment of inertia.
Both will have the same force of gravity pulling them down the incline and it will act through the same distance from the top to the bottom. The same goes for the torque (due to static friction) and the angular distance.
Thus it seems the work done on each is the same in terms of both rotational and translational kinetic energy (KE) and the sum of each for each object will be mgh.
That would normally lead me to conclude that they would have the same speeds but in this situation that clearly isn't true because they don't both accelerate at the same rate due to the difference in their moment of inertia. I can see that the object with the higher moment of inertia will have more energy in terms of its rotational KE and less in terms of translational KE regardless of the fact that they have both had the same force acting through the same distance, and torque through angular distance.
There seems to be a disconnect here and I'm finding it very confusing. Is the work done by a force through a distance not always equal to the objects kinetic energy as it appears here or am I just missing the obvious again?